As inflammatory as Opinion Journal is for some people on this site, the author is pretty much correct and left out a lot too. The governor's head of environment and health pulled a Bush and pretty much made up a BS excuse to deny the permits on nothing more than "CO2 contributes to global warming" without any sort of set numbers or anything.

The bill was actually well received by both Democrats and Republicans because Sunflower Electric pretty much bent over backwards to please the environmentalists. They would be putting in filters which will capture more than half of the 11 million tons of CO2 emitted and use it to grow algae for use with biofuels, they would require that 10 percent of its generating capacity be from alternative energy sources like wind power by 2015 I think and then 20 percent by 2025 and they would also provide subsidies for its customers to use solar power.

Yet despite all of this, Governor Sebilius refuses to back down in favor of parroting the whole wind farm idea. Of course, the Democrats opposing the construction have absolutely no intention of funding any wind farms either. If they tried to fund that sort of project (billions upon billions of public dollars), they'd be run out of Topeka faster than [insert favorite metaphor here]

YoungSwedishBlonde: . Of course, the Democrats opposing the construction have absolutely no intention of funding any wind farms either. If they tried to fund that sort of project (billions upon billions of public dollars), they'd be run out of Topeka faster than [insert favorite metaphor here]

Please elaborate.

POAC: Please elaborate

No private company is going to fund a 1.4 gigawatt wind farm or collection of such. The energy has got to come from somewhere...

I was more interested in how you could read the minds of democratic House members, but OK. You are right about no company wanting to fund a wind farm. But they exist, don't they? How did that happen?

Right now we're working with USDA Rural Development programs to help get grants and loans for wind farms and alternative energy programs as well as update the infrastructure to accommodate this progress. The main problem with wind farms is that no utility company, especially rural electrical cooperatives (RECs), can foot the bill to build the high-tension power lines to bring the power in from the wind farms. We're working to eliminate that. Most of the rural electrical infrastructure has not been improved or updated since the Rural Electrification Act from the New Deal.

oops, by high-tension power lines, I meant to say "transformer lines".

I can read the minds of the Democratic house members because they haven't proposed jack in response to the denial of permits.

And for existing wind farms, the biggest one in Kansas right now has 1/12th the capacity of what the two power plants will provide. It's not just upgrading outdated infrastructure. You're talking about finding approximately 150,000 acres of suitable and available land to place those turbines on as well as the initial cost of building a metric farkton of turbines. The state of Kansas cannot foot the bill, nor will Sunflower Electric.

Either way, this is going to bite Sebilius in the ass hard unless she hitches a ride on the Democratic ticket out of Kansas.

Looking at other wind farms around the country, my estimate of 150,000 acres seems a bit steep. I was basing it on the same measurements as the Gray County Wind Farm which produces 112 megawatts on 12,000 acres. However, you're still looking at mininum 60,000 acres compared to other newer wind farms built in New York and Texas.

fark coal. fark nukes. Temporary solutions to long term problems. It's stupid to keep Federal money involved in subsidizing these megacorporations so they can keep these ancient fuels the king of power generation. If the Feds would stop sucking special interest dink long enough to take the unnecessary corporate subsidies and create an incentive program providing real cash incentives for businesses and individuals to make their facilities/homes more efficient, that would eliminate the need for more power plants.

Finding the land shouldn't be difficult. But you are right, the funding is the problem and few states can afford it. That's why we need federal involvement.

As far as the House members, I wouldn't sell them short. I can't speak for Kansas(I'm doing this in Iowa)but getting a bill to the floor takes a lot of time. Something that needs to be done yesterday usually won't see the light of day until the next session or the session after that.

There could also be a political component. I wonder how much Sunflower Electric donated to the republicans last election cycle.

I agree with your sentiment, but not your pessimism. There are a lot of hurdles to clear, just as with any kind of large scale change. The solutions are out there, we just have to develop them.

As far as this coming back to bite the governor. Quite possibly, but a good leader will take a hit at the expense of their legacy to help foster innovation and progress. I'd be really surprised if the dems in your state didn't have anything in the works to accommodate this and I'd be equally surprised if you don't have republicans in your State House working to block those efforts. I know we have them in ours.

YSB No private company is going to fund a 1.4 gigawatt wind farm or collection of such. The energy has got to come from somewhere*... There is a privately developed wind farm near Springfield, Colorado that you may want to take a look at. The ranchers who own the land love the wind farm, it keeps their ranch in business during the lean times and does not interfere with the cattle operation. You are correct in that the wind farm does not produce 1.7 Gigawatts but there is a lot of available land in the area just waiting for the transmission infrastructure to be put in place.

*Why?

Wanna hear a grand plan? Since the big change to renewable energy is long and difficult, why not do it on a personal level?

Get this:
(It's part of my platform and I modified it from a Pennsylvania program)There's a dealer here in Iowa that sells small scale wind turbines to fit on the roof of your house/business. The gov't could subsidize the purchase of these for your house in the form of a fixed interest loan. Or we could require the banks to do it. It wouldn't provide enough energy to run your whole home, but it would cut down on your energy bill. Whatever difference that makes on your energy bill based on annual percentage, would then go to pay off your loan. When the loan is paid off, you have a lower energy bill and have added to the value of your home and you never felt the initial financial pinch on purchase/installation.

Build. Nuclear. Plants.

Yes kids, it really is that simple.

POAC re: your 2008-04-05 12:20:44 PM I would love it if that kind of program was instituted nation wide, I'd be among the first to sign up.

Weaver95: Build. Nuclear. Plants.

Yes kids, it really is that simple.

That's just crazy talk. There's no way a country could generate all their power from nuclear energy and wean themselves of foss...what, France gets 80% of their energy from nukes and has the world's most reliable reactors and safeguards?

-take 2-
That's just crazy talk. There's no way we are going to do anything that cheese eating surrender monkeys do. They don't support our war and hate freedom fries!!

/Nukes across the board, wind on the plains, solar in the South, and geothermal in the west.

Dude seriously WTF: Weaver95: Build. Nuclear. Plants.

Yes kids, it really is that simple.

That's just crazy talk. There's no way a country could generate all their power from nuclear energy and wean themselves of foss...what, France gets 80% of their energy from nukes and has the world's most reliable reactors and safeguards?

-take 2-
That's just crazy talk. There's no way we are going to do anything that cheese eating surrender monkeys do. They don't support our war and hate freedom fries!!

/Nukes across the board, wind on the plains, solar in the South, and geothermal in the west.

Actually, it's the environmentalists who hate/fear nuclear energy. I don't know why either, since it meets all their requirements AND makes the business people happy. Sure, they complain about the waste material, but we could reprocesses spent fuel rods and extend their usefulness.

Sometimes I think the environmentalist movement in this country isn't about saving the planet as much as it's about fear of technology.

Finding land will be difficult. 60,000 acres plus is a huge chunk of land and there's already been several lawsuits against wind farms for noise complaints.

As for Sunflower Electric, the only political contribution I could find was a 450 dollar donation by an attorney for Sunflower to Sam Brownback.

The project had bipartisan support because there was going to be many environmental upgrades, incentives for solar power and a promise to have 10 percent of its output be from alternative sources. Not to mention a big boost in the economy of SW Kasnas.

There was no real legal justification for the governor's office to block the permit and as of now, wind power is not economically feasible on the scale of which Sunflower is trying to build.

Weaver95: Build. Nuclear. Plants.

Yes kids, it really is that simple.

In the immediate term, yes. And specifically, one of the several varieties which is useless for making weapons-grade material. Options exist, and there's no reason to create more source of that, even in a relatively safer spot like Kansas.

Once you've caught up with present needs (and Kansas isn't exactly in crisis), however, you should start thinking for the future.

Medium term, Kansas is a good candidate for both solar/PV and wind-- lots of land, not many people. They have a low population density, so a more efficient plan would be to provide strong economic incentives for individual homes to generate their own power, thus avoiding large transmission losses from centralized stations. This also has the side effect of mitigating emergency situations which could disrupt the grid.

In a similar vein, create tax incentives for people to do the 'duh' stuff: insulate their home, upgrade their lighting, install solar-thermal heating, use natural light well in new homes, install rain collection systems for non-potable water use, etc. All of that stuff saves money and resources in the long term, but people usually don't plan far enough ahead and/or can't absorb the initial capital cost. Spend some money here instead of continually buying new power plants.

curmudge: POAC re: your 2008-04-05 12:20:44 PM I would love it if that kind of program was instituted nation wide, I'd be among the first to sign up.

I'd cut in line in front of you.

YoungSwedishBlonde: There was no real legal justification for the governor's office to block the permit and as of now, wind power is not economically feasible on the scale of which Sunflower is trying to build.

Legal justification? GLOBAL WARMING! TERRORISM! FOR THE CHILDREN!

Damn. That didn't work, did it?

WAR ON DRUGS! IRAQ! GEORGE BUSH! HILLARY CLINTON!

Yeah, that'll shut ya up for good now...

chimp_ninja: Medium term, Kansas is a good candidate for both solar/PV and wind-- lots of land, not many people. They have a low population density, so a more efficient plan would be to provide strong economic incentives for individual homes to generate their own power, thus avoiding large transmission losses from centralized stations. This also has the side effect of mitigating emergency situations which could disrupt the grid.

In a similar vein, create tax incentives for people to do the 'duh' stuff: insulate their home, upgrade their lighting, install solar-thermal heating, use natural light well in new homes, install rain collection systems for non-potable water use, etc. All of that stuff saves money and resources in the long term, but people usually don't plan far enough ahead and/or can't absorb the initial capital cost. Spend some money here instead of continually buying new power plants.

You mean like what Sunflower Electric proposed as part of the project to build the two power plants?

Weaver95: Actually, it's the environmentalists who hate/fear nuclear energy.

It's really not. The green movement generally likes fission. The major concerns revolve around weapon proliferation and waste storage, and reasonable solutions exist for both of these if you're building plants from scratch. (Older-style plants are admittedly harder to deal with.)

Fission tends to be opposed by people with low science literacy, regardless of their politics or income. "Green" scientists tend to view it somewhere between "necessary evil" and "good option for up to ~40% of the grid".

Weaver95: Legal justification? GLOBAL WARMING! TERRORISM! FOR THE CHILDREN!

Damn. That didn't work, did it?

WAR ON DRUGS! IRAQ! GEORGE BUSH! HILLARY CLINTON!

Yeah, that'll shut ya up for good now...

I'm just indifferent because Al Gore knocked up my sister and took my lunch money.

curmudge: I would love it if that kind of program was instituted nation wide, I'd be among the first to sign up.

The problem is energy industry lobbyists and their republican lackeys. Plain and simple. We've got a handful of republican Reps in our State House that were passing out free copies of a global warming denial book that was given to them by an ExxonMobile funded think tank in Chicago. Their main argument is that addressing global warming will harm our economy. Of course, our current rep is the vice president for a utility company. Go figure.

chimp_ninja: Fission tends to be opposed by people with low science literacy, regardless of their politics or income.

Yeah - that's most of the eco-nutters infesting the environmentalist camp. They're like bible thumpers, only with global warming on the brain instead of Jesus.

"Green" scientists tend to view it somewhere between "necessary evil" and "good option for up to ~40% of the grid".

It's the 'necessary evil' folks that tend to harbor luddite sympathies. all well and good, but I tend to not trust scientists who think of technological development as a 'necessary evil'.

YoungSwedishBlonde: You mean like what Sunflower Electric proposed as part of the project to build the two power plants?

Not that I'm up on my Kansas politics, but I wasn't supporting the governor's decision.

I would recommend fission over coal, however, for the immediate need. Coal is cheaper on paper, but only if you ignore the externalities.

Weaver95:
Actually, it's the environmentalists who hate/fear nuclear energy. I don't know why either, since it meets all their requirements AND makes the business people happy. Sure, they complain about the waste material, but we could reprocesses spent fuel rods and extend their usefulness.

Sometimes I think the environmentalist movement in this country isn't about saving the planet as much as it's about fear of technology.

I was reading an article in National Geographic that pointed out that much of the 70's/80's anti-nuke movement was heavily reliant on public fears generated by the movie The China Syndrome. Combined with an economic slowdown that threatened coal in WV, the mining companies were very supportive of keeping those fears alive.

YoungSwedishBlonde: I'm just indifferent because Al Gore knocked up my sister and took my lunch money.

At least you got rid of the Doles......

chimp_ninja:
Not that I'm up on my Kansas politics, but I wasn't supporting the governor's decision.

I would recommend fission over coal, however, for the immediate need. Coal is cheaper on paper, but only if you ignore the externalities.

Sunflower planned to capture over half of the CO2 emissions released and use them for some crazy Algae biofuel scheme or something as well as providing subsidies for solar power and conservation and they're also pledging to meet the Governor's voluntary goal of 10 percent of generation capacity being from alternative sources by 2010 or 2015 or something, too lazy to look it all up.

As for coal over nuclear, I think building the actual facility is cheaper than a nuclear reactor in strict monetary terms (not environmental impact), the lack of water in the area prohibits water cooled reactors (although I hear those pebble reactors are all the rage now) and the fact that a few hundred miles away lies 100 years worth of cheap fuel.

Weaver95: all well and good, but I tend to not trust scientists who think of technological development as a 'necessary evil'.

Fission presents a unique security risk among the available options. Even the designs intended to circumvent weapon manufacturing have to worry about safeguarding the more concentrated radiological material.

That, and our U/Th reserves won't last forever, and you don't want to lock yourself into another OPEC-like situation 75 years or so down the road. Fission is a good transition technology, but solar/PV combined with good storage (and solar-to-fuel technology) is where you ultimately want to be.

YoungSwedishBlonde: some crazy Algae biofuel scheme

It's actually a really great program. It acts as a carbon sink but also provides methane for energy. Methane digesters are going to be a big player in alternative energy in the very near future.

ExJerseyGirl if you have tits I'd let you. smirk

POAC The problem is energy industry lobbyists and their republican lackeys. . . . which is one of the reasons I am no longer a member of the Republic Party.

YoungSwedishBlonde I guess I wasn't clear, neither a state nor a utility need to own property in order to build wind farms. There are a lot of wind farms being build on privately owned land. The land owner signs a lease with the power company and for some ranchers and farmers it can be a win win situation. My neighbor's family owns land east of Colorado Springs, they have been approached by a power company to lease one of their pieces of property, the amount of money they will receive will allow them to continue raising cattle on the rest of their land. The limiting factor has more to do with lack of power transmission infrastructure than lack of suitable land.

curmudge My neighbor's family owns land east of Colorado Springs...

I was just reading (new window) about that area.

curmudge: There are a lot of wind farms being build on privately owned land. The land owner signs a lease with the power company and for some ranchers and farmers it can be a win win situation.

Also a great way to help Indian reservations reduce their poverty rate. A lot of the land set aside for reservations isn't farmable or suitable for livestock, but great for solar development in the Southwest and wind on the plains. I can't do that in my state (we don't have tribal land) but getting the USDA Rural Development offices and the BIA together would be a great move for South Dakota.

POAC Nice article, that's the place in my Boobies, my neighbor's property is about 150 miles away near Yoder, Colorado. I only bring this up in order to make a point of just how large the area is that we are talking about. A related project that is going on in Eads, Colorado is a private company that is producing lubricants and other products from sun flower seeds and plants. Sun flowers grow profusely in this part of the world, even on land that has wind farms. Eads is very close to this National Park (p).

Nice article, that's the place in my Boobies, pawned by the filter.

Nice article, that's the place in my 'earliest' post.

Weaver95: Build. Nuclear. Plants.

Yes kids, it really is that simple.

Yes, nukes are great. Except for that whole waste that doesn't become safe for centuries part.

I'll accept nuclear plants as a viable form of energy production if you can prove that you can store the waste until it is not heavily radioactive and can prove that it won't leech out into the groundwater and soil. Waste is leaking out of every nuclear storage site, and it will only get worse.

Dirty coal plants are better than nukes because CO₂ is a lot easier to scrub out of the atmosphere

chimp_ninja: Fission presents a unique security risk among the available options. Even the designs intended to circumvent weapon manufacturing have to worry about safeguarding the more concentrated radiological material.

That, and our U/Th reserves won't last forever, and you don't want to lock yourself into another OPEC-like situation 75 years or so down the road. Fission is a good transition technology, but solar/PV combined with good storage (and solar-to-fuel technology) is where you ultimately want to be.

Do you even know what you are talking about? I don't mean to downplay your concerns, but the "nuclear weapons" issue is nothing more than a red hearing.

1. We already have more than enough nukes.

2. We aren't going to be leaving this stuff in a crate on the side of the road. Have the reprocessing on site and the "theft" concerns are gone.

3. Breeder reactor plutonium contains large amounts of Pu-240. Pu-240 is a contaminate in Nuclear weapons, but useful as fuel in a breeder reactor. Reactor operators will keep the Pu-240 mixed with the Pu-239 because for them there is no reason to separate it.

From Wikipedia: Uranium (new window)

......It is more plentiful than antimony, tin, cadmium, mercury, or silver, and it is about as abundant as arsenic or molybdenum.[5][9] It is found in hundreds of minerals including uraninite (the most common uranium ore), autunite, uranophane, torbernite, and coffinite.[5] Significant concentrations of uranium occur in some substances such as phosphate rock deposits, and minerals such as lignite, and monazite sands in uranium-rich ores[5] (it is recovered commercially from these sources with as little as 0.1% uranium[7])........

......It is estimated that 4.7 million tonnes of uranium ore reserves are economically viable, while 35 million tonnes are classed as mineral resources (reasonable prospects for eventual economic extraction).[34] An additional 4.6 billion tonnes of uranium are estimated to be in sea water (Japanese scientists in the 1980s showed that extraction of uranium from sea water using ion exchangers was feasible)

Using a non-reprocessing fuel cycle means that we can only use the small fraction, .71%, that is U-235. Using breeder reactors and reprocessing, suddenly all that otherwise useless U-238 becomes valuable fuel. 4,700,000 tons of Uranium will last us for quite a long time if we convert it all to nuclear fuel. We can even get it out of seawater if we need to.

So the thoughts about "security concerns" and "Running out of Uranium" are both false. The material created in breeders is useless for weapons without further, expensive and intensive, refining. Security issues are a non-issue because we already can build facilities sufficiently secure. Uranium is plentiful as hell and we will not run out anytime soon.

GAT_00: Yes, nukes are great. Except for that whole waste that doesn't become safe for centuries part.

I'll accept nuclear plants as a viable form of energy production if you can prove that you can store the waste until it is not heavily radioactive and can prove that it won't leech out into the groundwater and soil. Waste is leaking out of every nuclear storage site, and it will only get worse.

Dirty coal plants are better than nukes because CO2 is a lot easier to scrub out of the atmosphere

Use breeder reactors and fuel reprocessing and the waste you are left with is dangerously radioactive for a few hundred years at most. Yucca mountain will be able to easily handle this waste. In a few hundred years, it can be removed and disposed of by other means.

You also realize that waste from coal plants is highly radioactive, right? Coal Ash Is More Radioactive than Nuclear Waste (new window) So you can either have nuke plant radiation, or even worse coal plant emissions.

Also, your call for "proof" will never be met to your satisfaction. You are asking to prove a negative, which cannot be done. There is acceptable risk involved with everything in life.

We as a people must either accept the risks of nuclear energy, as France has done and benefited greatly, or continue to have our nuts held by foreigners who have oil.

With regards to the question of nuclear power plants Crosshair pretty much nails it in one.

And a few more people learn that "Environmentalism" is code for "Money", as in making things cost as much as possible in order to harm the economy.

Whaddup solar power.

You know, if we had sunk half the money into solar power that we do into subsidizing the oil industry in America, solar power would make energy so cheap and plentiful that we'd have more problems finding materials to build air conditioners instead of having to turn them off in many states?

Let me explain this one. This plant is designed to meet the needs of the suburbs of Denver, Colorado. 85% of the new power is designated to Colorado utilities, and Kansas consumers can't get to it, even if power needs grow in Western Kansas. Colorado, being the prissy farks that they are, have carbon emissions laws that basically prevent this plant being sited in Colorado.

Meanwhile, the plant will draw water from the rapidly-depleting Ogallah aquifer. This is a big damn deal in Western Kansas. Meanwhile, Colorado is appropriating water that should Kansas in the Arkansas basin, despite *SIX* Supreme Court decisions.

That's the subtext here.

/ personally, pro-nuke.

should flow to Kansas.

/FTFM.

I'm also going to chime in here on heavy nuclear waste.

The WIPP (Waste Isolation Pilot Project) was a term study project for me last year. I looked at how well we could realistically contain the waste for the 150,000+ years it needs to sit and break down.

Even with designing a site that will warn archaeologists 50,000 years into the future (best estimates) that something bad is buried there, even with the best current glass-matrix uranium storage techniques, even with the best site selection...

There is still a nontrivial risk of a major nuclear leak event, and with storage sizes like what is proposed in the WIPP, that would leave about a hundred thousand square miles of America uninhabitable because of how Uranium and Plutonium propagate through groundwater and streams.

The best they can do is say with great certainty that there won't be a leak within the next 30-50,000 years. After that, it is anyone's guess.

YoungSwedishBlonde: The bill was actually well received by both Democrats and Republicans because Sunflower Electric pretty much bent over backwards to please the environmentalists.

A timeless rule of thumb: It is impossible to please environmentalists.

Yeah nuclear power is a very environmentally friendly solution in terms of CO2 emissions. The waste is another issue but there are many many people working on how to catalyze the decay process or neutralize the waste products.

/Florida has also embraced nuclear power

Okay, I'm going to try to make this clear to those saying "Fission just pushes back the mark to when re run out of fuel!" :
ALL FORMS OF POWER GENERATION are simply "Pushing back the mark" on when we run out of resources/fuel/etc.

Yes, even Photo Voltaics, for two reasons:
One: Photo Voltaics don't pop out of thin air, after all. They take resources to make. Said resources are probably not infinite.
Two: The sun won't be around forever, either.

In fact, until we find a way to break the laws of physics, *all* power generation will simply be 'pushing back' the mark, because we still lose to the eventual heat-death of the universe.


Does that mean we shouldn't invest in Photovoltaics? FARK NO! But it also doesn't mean we should just ignore fission, either! There are several hurdles to photovoltaics (including powering things at night: Until we get some nice high-temp superconductors, storing energy can be a bit of a biatch). However, that barrier aside, Photovoltaics are still amazingly useful, especially because they provide electricity when more electricity is consumed: During the daytime. Thus, Photovoltaics are a good thing to use for the 'extra'/variable power that a grid needs, with something like, say, a fission plant running as the baseline.

You've got lots of space, right? I always wated to see one of these up and running...

http://www.enviromission.com.au/project/technology.htm

GurneyHalleck: fark coal. fark nukes. Temporary solutions to long term problems. It's stupid to keep Federal money involved in subsidizing these megacorporations so they can keep these ancient fuels the king of power generation. If the Feds would stop sucking special interest dink long enough to take the unnecessary corporate subsidies and create an incentive program providing real cash incentives for businesses and individuals to make their facilities/homes more efficient, that would eliminate the need for more power plants.

Let me get this straight... Subsidizing energy companies is "stupid" but subsidizing all businesses is a great idea?

Currently, the tax code is rich with incentives for energy efficiency. Living in Indiana, I wrote off a truckload of insulation for an old house. Now in Arizona, I could get tax credits for solar panels. (Are the federal solar tax credits still around?)

You have a lovely idea, that if only people were more energy efficient we wouldn't need power plants. But the incentives you call for already exist AND they equate to subsidizing megacorporations, which you think is independently evil.

We can't pie-in-the-sky our way out of energy issues. Efficiency is good, but ultimately we're going to need more, newer sources of energy.

Crosshair:

2. We aren't going to be leaving this stuff in a crate on the side of the road. Have the reprocessing on site and the "theft" concerns are gone.

So you're saying that every nuke plant should have an entire reprocessing facility?

Aside from the obvious expense, that would be about the worst environmental hazard imaginable.

Fuel reprocessing isn't just patting it into bricks and sticking it in another reactor. It involves all sorts of nasty solvents that end up being their own sort of waste, typically hundreds of gallons worth for each pound of plutonium.

People tend to forget that part of reprocessing. Google "Hanford Reserve" for an extreme example of large-scale plutonium processing can lead to.

Lawnchair: Let me explain this one. This plant is designed to meet the needs of the suburbs of Denver, Colorado. 85% of the new power is designated to Colorado utilities, and Kansas consumers can't get to it, even if power needs grow in Western Kansas. Colorado, being the prissy farks that they are, have carbon emissions laws that basically prevent this plant being sited in Colorado.

Meanwhile, the plant will draw water from the rapidly-depleting Ogallah aquifer. This is a big damn deal in Western Kansas. Meanwhile, Colorado is appropriating water that should Kansas in the Arkansas basin, despite *SIX* Supreme Court decisions.

That's the subtext here.

/ personally, pro-nuke.

Thanks for the background. It only makes it more obvious that we have to have a comprehensive energy policy. It's not optional. Border-hopping plans like this defeat the purpose of the laws themselves by introducing unnecessary ineffeciency of distance.